About Me

I was born in march 1968 in a small village in Hertfordshire, just north of London. My father
was English (English father Irish mother) and my mother is Welsh.
When I was 2 months old the family moved to the Lebanon. I had some very good times there.
We left due to the war in a convoy that was miles long and travelled by road from Beirut to
Damascus in an 8 hour journey on the 4th of July 1976.
Since then i have lived in Croydon then various parts of Mid Sussex where I now live.

Friday, March 02, 2007

Cash for Peerages, That injunction update

Firstly I stick by the previous article, unless the Attorney General wants to put me straight on anything, bearing in mind there is no injunction against me.

Reports indicate that the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, made an application for an injunction in the High Court, at the Royal Courts of Justice, in the Strand. The application was Intra parties, as in both the BBC and the Attorney General were represented, and before 1 high court judge. The hearing lasted some 2 hours, and the AG got his injunction. I suspect that the BBC filed their notice of appeal, which would have been mostly filled out before the hearing, as they left. BBC lawyers will be burning the midnight oil between now and Monday when they will hope to get an urgent appeal hearing before 3 appeal court judges, possibly but unlikely 5. I suspect given the nature of the hearing, if the original judge did not give permission to appeal, that the permission to appeal and appeal hearing will be one hearing. Expect a judgment somewhere between 4 ish Monday to Wednesday.

The BBC is now reporting that the AG applied for the injunction on behalf of the Metropolitan Police. This seems a bit odd. Normally the press can get away with reporting all the sordid details of a case right up until charges are laid, when it becomes sub judecea (sic) and they have to be very careful.

This fact alone will lead to huge amounts of speculation. For a start it seems to imply the police are close. It seems to say Yates of the Yard is very close to saying "your nicked my beauty!" to some poor unfortunate canary who will not doubt then sing like a bird!

The BBC is clear that it is miffed. In fact I would say double miffed. It claims the story is in the public interest, and it probably is.

I expect the BBC's appeal to be successful, unless it is interrupted by the news that someone has been charged.

I'm surprised no one has asked on what basis the A-G could get an injunction - the only one I can think of is under the Contempt of Court Act 1981- i.e. because criminal proceedings must be very close.